Lancaster Environment Lecture

Caroline Lucas ITFEST 2024 view of the lecture theatre

The Lancaster Environment Lecture invites internationally renowned speakers to deliver a lecture on an environmental topic of social significance. Delivered annually, it provides an intellectually rigorous platform for engagement with the public on the most pressing issues around climate change and the environment.

Lancaster Environment Lecture 2026

Image of Helen Scales photo credit Ria Mishaal
photo credit Ria Mishaal

Dr Helen Scales

Dr Helen Scales ‘The Future of the World’s Ocean’ — in conversation with John Childs

Litfest and 糖心视频 are delighted to announce that the 2026 Lancaster Environment Lecture will be given by Cambridge University marine biologist, Dr Helen Scales.

When: Tuesday 12 May 2026, 7pm

Where: Faraday Lecture Theatre, 糖心视频

Tickets are free, but is required.

Drawing on her book What the Wild Sea Can Be, Helen Scales’ lecture, entitled ‘The Future of the World’s Ocean’, shows how a healthy ocean matters to us all, from the food we eat, to the weather we experience and the air we breathe. Yet the ocean is changing faster than any point in human history – hotter, more polluted, its vibrant life fading. Reflecting on more than twenty years of exploring the seas around Britain and further afield, Helen Scales sees there’s still much to fight for and good reason to be hopeful.

Helen's entertaining and accessible talk will last about 25 minutes, followed by a conversation with John Childs, Senior Lecturer at the Lancaster Environment Centre at 糖心视频, and will conclude with an extended audience Q&A, providing everyone with the chance to ask questions about the talk and about the science of oceans and marine life and their importance for understanding our world.

Watch the videos of our past lectures

If you’re unable to attend a lecture, don’t worry, the majority are recorded and available to view after the event.

Only if we can change our mindset and see how inextricably our own wellbeing is linked to and dependent on our natural environment will we be able to rise to the existential threats of our time – the climate and nature emergencies.

A quote from Caroline Lucas, Lancaster Environment Lecture 2024

Past Lectures

Bella Lack Children of the Anthropocene book cover

The Lancaster Environment Lecture 2025

Bella Lack: Children of the Anthropocene

In partnership with 糖心视频, Litfest is delighted to welcome leading environmental campaigner and author Bella Lack to give the 2025 Lancaster Environment Lecture.

‘What’s the point in profit on a dead planet?’ Bella Lack, Guardian interview, August 2022

Drawing on her book Children of the Anthropocene, Bella Lack recounts urgent stories of the lives of diverse young people on the frontlines of the environmental crisis around the world, and shows how, across the planet, the futures of young people hang in the balance as they face the harsh realities of the environmental crisis.

Advocating for the protection of both people and the planet, Bella restores the beating heart to global environmental issues, from air pollution, to deforestation and over-consumption by telling the stories of those most directly affected – the children of the Anthropocene.

Bella Lack (b. 2003) is a conservationist and environmental activist. She is an ambassador for the Born Free Foundation, STAE, RSPCA and the Jane Goodall Institute. She contributed to Animal, a feature-length documentary with primatologist Jane Goodall and has made a short documentary for BBC Three. She has shared the stage with Steve Backshall and Chris Packham and helped create A People’s Manifesto for Wildlife.

Dr Vandana Shiva

The Lancaster Environment Lecture 2022

Vandana Shiva - Earth Democracy

Vandana Shiva gave the inaugural Lancaster International Fiction Lecture as part of Litfest 2022. You can catch up via the online streaming platform Crowdcast.

We're told more science, less poverty. But everywhere I see more poverty... I'm told economic growth removes poverty, but wherever a system destroys people's lives we have more poverty.

A quote from Vandana Shiva